SAIEP, the tubers of many species of °mills and other oreitidete, dried and used as an 'article of food Of the two tubers usually found at the roots of these plants, only one is gathered for salep, the younger and more solid of the two. The tubers arc •ithorod when the stalk is about to fall. They vary from the size of a eherry-stone to that of an olive. They are cleaned, (Upped for at few minutes in boiling-water. and dried' as quickly as possible, by which proceSs they are rendered hard and horny. The greater •put• of the salep of commerce is brought from the east, and much of it from Persia; it is supposed to be obtained from species of eulophia; but most of the European species of °relax are used for it.
Before coffee became so common in Britain. salep was an article of considerable importance, and large quantities were imported from Turkey, Persia, and India. In
France it is still in considerable request. For use it is ground into a tine powder, and mixed with boiling water, sugar and milk being added according to taste. As a diet drink, it was considered very Illltri t ions and wholesome, and forty years ago it.was sold, ready prepared, to the working-classes of London early in the morning from the autocr oss street stalls. Its principal constituents starch, and phosphate ()Mime. ' SALERATUS (aerated salt), a name long ago applied to an imperfectly bicarbonate of potash, made by exposing a neutral carbonate to the action of carbonic acid gas. The salt may be considered as a sesquicarbonate of potash. It has been dis 'placed for culinary- purposes by bicarbonate of soda, a more preferable article, and more easily assimilated by the system. See POTASSIUM and Sornun, ante.